1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to lighting systems, and more particularly to a flexible light rail which may be used for commercial, residential, and display lighting purposes.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Lighting fixtures are available in a tremendous variety of categories, including desk or table lamps, ceiling fixtures, fluorescent and neon tubing, and specialty lamps such as track lighting or spotlights. The present invention is directed to a lighting system which provides a continuous light strip of indefinite length.
Several prior art devices can provide successive lighting units which achieve the semblance of continuous lighting. An example of this is fluorescent tubing which may be laid end to end, with appropriate intervening sockets. One disadvantage to such a system, however, relates to the shadowy spots between successive tubes, which breaks up the continuous effect. A similar product which avoids these dark spots is neon (or other fluorescing gas) tubing which may be custom designed to any length and shape. Obviously, however, custom neon tubing can be prohibitively expensive. The color quality of fluorescent lamps is also inferior to incandescent or halogen type lamps.
Light rails have been devised which incorporate incandescent light bulbs. Two such light rails are depicted in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,158,221 and 4,521,838, both issued to Y. Agabekov, on June 12, 1979, and June 4, 1985, respectively. Those devices essentially consist of a winged bar having two conductive strips, one on each wing of the rail. A series of tabs extend off the conducting strips, and are appropriately paired to receive tubular lamps. A similar rail is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,723,199 issued to Freed et al. (Mr. Freed being a co-inventor of the present invention) on Feb. 2, 1988.
One problem with each of these devices is that the conductive strips are exposed along their entire length, requiring extra material costs to conform to safety standards such as those promulgated by Underwriter's Laboratories. More importantly, however, each of the aforesaid devices is rigid in nature, making it difficult, if not impossible, to conform the light rail to an irregular surface. Several rail segments may be successively joined by flexible wire couplings to reach around corners or change the direction of the rail; however, this can result in the aforementioned shadowy spots at these couplings, and true curvature of the rail can never be achieved. It would, therefore, be desirable and advantageous to devise a light rail of indefinite length which would be flexible in nature, yet still provide essentially continuous lighting.